Apparatus for defining characters on impression-receiving material



D 27, 1955 w. E. JOHNSON ET AL 2,728,239

APPARATUS FOR DEFINING CHARACTERS ON IMPRESSION-RECEIVING MATERIAL Filed May 19, 1954 5 Sheets-Sheet 1 Inventor M4 4 MM 5 Jamison 4E MA 1512s C P4511477 Dec. 27. 1955 w. E. JOHNSON ET AL 2,728,289

APPARATUS FOR DEFINING CHARACTERS ON IMPRESSION-RECEIVING MATERIAL Filed May 19, 1954 3 Sheets-Sheet 2 Dec. 27, 1955 w, JOHNSON ET AL 2,728,239 APPARATUS FOR DEFINING CHARACTERS ON IMPRESSION-RECEIVING MATERIAL Filed May 19, 1954 3 Sheets-Sheet 3 IQC Isa 915 IGS.

United States Patent APPARATUS FOR DEFINING CHARACTERS 0N IMPRESSION-RECEIVING MATERIAL William Edward Johnson, Streatham, London, and

Maurice Charles Paton Hewitt, -South Croydon, lingland, assignors to Powers-Samas Accounting Machines Limited, London, England, a British company Application May 19, 1954, Serial No. 430,946

Claims priority, application Great Britain May 29, 1953 2 Claims. (Cl. 101-93) This invention relates to apparatus for defining characters on impression-receiving material, e. g. paper.

When employing known printing processes employing selectively operable individual type elements the original and any copies thereof bear characters of the same size. In other words copies made simultaneously with the original are of the same size as the original and if included in a filing system, as is often the case, the copies occupy considerable space.

It is the object of the present invention to provide an apparatus for defining characters whereby an original and one or more copies may be simultaneously made but which will produce copies of reduced size thereby reducing the space required for filing the copies.

It has already been proposed to provide for defining characters on impression-receiving material, e. g. paper, apparatus comprising a platen, a plurality of styluses supported for independent axial movement towards the" platen, a reciprocating member co-operating with the marking ends of said styluses to reciprocate said marking ends lengthwise of the platen in paths which determine the max mum widths of characters to be defined by the styluses, actuating means for each stylus operable during movement of the marking end of the stylus by said reciprocating member to apply discrete impulses to the stylus to effect lengthwise movements thereof to cause its marking end to make character-defining marks on the impression-receiving material, and feeding means to feed the material between the platen and styluses with a linear speed which determines the maximum height of the characters, and the present invention is an improvement to such an apparatus.

According to the present invention there is provided for defining characters on impression-receiving material, e. g. paper, apparatus comprising a platen, a plurality of styluses supported for independent axial movement towards the platen, a reciprocating member co-operating with the marking ends of said styluses to reciprocate said marking ends lengthwise of the platen in paths which determine the maximum widths of characters to be defined by the styluses, and actuating means for each stylus operable during movement of the marking end thereof by the reciprocating member to apply discrete impulses to the stylus to effect lengthwise movement thereof to cause its marking end to make character-defining marks on the impression-receiving material, and including a first feeding means to feed one piece of impression receiving material between the platen and the styluses with a linear speed to determine the maximum height of a character, and a second feeding means to feed a second piece of impression-receiving material between the platen and the styluses simultaneously with the material fed by said first feeding means and with a linear speed less than that of the first piece of material whereby like characters are simultaneously defined on said two pieces of material and the characters on One piece have a height greater than those on the other piece.

In order that the invention may be clearly understood,

2,728,289 Patented Dec. 27, 1955 one embodiment thereof willnow be described, way 1. of examplewith reference to the accompanying dlagranr matic drawings, in which Fig. 1 is an elevation, partly in section, of apparatus according to the invention,

Fig. 2 is a top plan of Fig. 1,

Fig. 3 is a pictorial view'of a part of the apparatus shown in Fig. 1,

Fig, 4 illustrates a character-determining disc for the letter A,

Fig. 5 graphically illustrates the'man'ner in which, under control of the disc shown in Fig. 4, a stylus de fines the letter A on impression receiving material forming atop or original copy, and v Fig. 6v graphically illustrates the manner in which,

under control of the disc shown in Fig. 4, a stylus 'definesftheletter A on impression-receiving material forming a copysimultaneou'sly with thaton the originall As mentioned above the apparatus for effecting movements of the styluses is already known and such appa-.

ratus' will therefore be described herein only in-so-far as is necessary to the understanding of the present invention. Referring to the drawings, the apparatus embodies a plurality of styluseseach of'which consists of a flexible '2 wire 1, the wire being the inner wireof a flexible cable such as a Bowden wire which cable consists of the inner wire 1 and an outer member 2 which outer member is a fixed member having its opposite ends clamped as indicated in'Figs. l and 3. 'The inner wire is movable length- The marking ends 3 of the flexible wires 1 are directed 1 towards a platen '7, Figs. 1' to 3, over which, in any suitable known manner, there is fed a first web 8of impression-receiving material, such as paper, and a second web 9. The webs 8 and 9 a're,as is customary, fed one behind the other the web 8 being to form the top or original copy and the web 9 to form a' second copy which is a true copy made simultaneously with the original. Also over the platen 7 are fed webs 10, 11 of transfer media I; such as a carbon ribbon or the like although it will be readily understood that, if desired, the original copy 8 may, in known manner, bear a transfer media on the reverse side thereof thus avoiding the necessity for the web 11.

The web feeding apparatus, which: is illustrated only may be of any suitable form at-rangeddiagrammatically,

to feed the webs over the platen at a constant linear speed which defines the 9 is arranged to feed the web with a linear speed less the linear speeds of thewebs to the required difierence in height'of the-characters to be simultaneously defined on the webs, thus if the height of the characters on web 9 is to be one-half that of those on web 8 and the linear speed of web 8 isconsidered as being X, the linear speed of web 9 will be It will be understood that the linear speed of webs 10, 11 is immaterial as movement thereof is effected only to ensure clear definition of characters by the transfer therefrom of the transfer media carried thereby.

maximum height of characters defined thereon by the'styluses 1. However, in accordance with thepresent invention, the feeding apparatus for the web The marking ends 3 of reciprocating guide member 12, the wires passing through apertures 13, Fig. 3, in the guide member. The member 12 is supported for lengthwise movement by fixed guides 14, 15, Fig. 2, and is connected by an eccentric strap 16 with an eccentric 17 rotated by any suitable means, not shown. The eccentric throw is such that the amplitude of reciprocation imparted to the marking end 3 of each stylus 1 by the member 12 is equal to the maximum width of a character to be defined thereby as illustrated in Figs. 5 and 6.

In the embodiment of the apparatus herein described it is assumed that the member 12 makes eleven reciprocations 18, Figs. 5 and 6, during the definition of a character, however as can be seen from Figs. 5 and 6 the arrangement is such that discrete impulses are applied to the wires 1 only during the first eight of a cycle of eleven reciprocations 18, the remaining three reciprocations of the cycle being idle and representing the interval during which selection is made from a plurality of continuously rotating character-determining discs 19, of which one is illustrated in Fig. 4, to control the operation of solenoids 6, and during which line spacing is effected.

Each character-determining disc 19 is electrically connected with each solenoid 6 and is provided with peripheral electrical contacts 19a-19cc for co-operation with brushes, not shown, so that at intervals and for periods determined by the contacts the solenoid 6 is energised and imparts discrete impulses to wire 1 causing the wire to be moved lengthwise to impinge against the web 10 so that, according to the length of a contact, a dot or a line is marked on the webs 8, 9. In Figs. 4, 5 and 6 the reference numerals 19a-19cc indicate the contacts and the dots or lines marked as a result thereof, the contact 19p resulting in the marking of a line. In Figs. 5 and 6 the two vertical lines indicate the end positions of the stroke of the marking end 3 of a stylus and the sloping lines indicate the approximate path traced in space by the end 3 relative to the paper webs 8, 9 due to movement thereof at a constant linear speed as aforesaid. The references 360 indicate the end positions of wire end 3 in relation to the angular movement of disc 19.

Figs. v5 and 6 illustrate respectively the manner in which a character is simultaneously formed on an original, Fig. 5, and on a copy, Fig. 6, it being assumed that the height of characters on the copy are to be one-half that of those on the original, as indicated by the references X, Fig. 5, and

Fig. 6. It will be understood that, as is customary, the web-feeding apparatuses will operate to effect line spacing between rows of characters and that, by maintaining the same line spacing on both webs the length of web 9 employed will be much less than that of the web 8. It will also be understood that byemploying on web 9 line spacing which is less than that employed on web 8 a further saving of copy material can be effected.

Although in the example given character-determining discs have been described as controlling the operation of solenoids 6 the manner of selection of the discs 19 for operation thereof forms no part of the present invention the wires 1 cooperate with a armature 5 thereof, as mentioned above, effects lengthwise movement of the inner wire 1 so that the wire is impinged against the webs passing over the platen 7 and when the electrical pulse ceases the wire 1 is restored to the inactive position thereof on return movement of the armature 5.

In the embodiment of the invention described above, the styluses have been described as flexible wires, but it will be understood that, if desired, a stylus can have a form other than that of a wire and may comprise a stylus which is provided with marking material so that it makes an impression on the web 8 by direct contact with the web thus avoiding the use of the transfer web 10. In such case, however, the transfer web 11 will be necessary unless transfer media is carried by the reverse side of web 8.

We claim:

1. For defining characters on impression-receiving material, e. g. paper, apparatus comprising a platen, a plurality of styluses supported for independent axial movement towards the platen, a reciprocating member cooperating with the marking ends of said styluses to reciprocate said marking ends lengthwise of the platen in paths which determine the maximum widths of characters to be defined by the styluses, and actuating means for each stylus operable during movement of the marking end thereof by the reciprocating member to apply discrete impulses to the stylus to efiect lengthwise movements thereof to cause its marking end to make character-defining marks on the impression-receiving material, and including a first feeding means to feed one piece of impression-receiving material between the platen and the styluses with a linear speed to determine the maximum height of a character, and a second feeding means to feed a second piece of impression-receiving material between the platen and the styluses simultaneously with the material fed by said first feeding means and with a linear speed less than that of the first piece of material whereby like characters are simultaneously defined on said two pieces of material and the characters on one piece have a height greater than those on the other piece.

2. For defining characters on impression-receiving material, e. g. paper, apparatus comprising a platen, styluses supported for movement relative to the platen, means cooperating with the styluses to effect movement thereof relative to the platen thereby by patterns of dots to define characters on impression-receiving material located between the styluses and the platen, a first feeding means operable during character definition to feed one piece of impression-receiving material between the platen and the marking elements with a linear speed to determine the maximum height of a character, and a second feeding means also operable during character definition to feed a second piece of impression-receiving material between the platen and the marking elements simultaneously with the material fed by said first feeding means and with a linear speed less than that of the first piece of material whereby like characters are simultaneously defined on said two pieces of material and the characters on the piece fed by said first feeding means have a height greater than that of those on the piece fed by said second feeding means.

References Cited in the file of this patent UNITED STATES PATENTS 1,934,897 Watson Nov. 14, 1933 2,318,020 Sherman May 4, 1943 2,392,838 Davidson Jan. 15, i946 

